Summerset Waikanae, Wellington

Leading retirement village provider Summerset Holdings’ proposed Waikanae development involves construction of approximately 200 residential dwellings, comprising common areas alongside apartment buildings and townhouses of various sizes and configurations. When complete, it will provide significant aged care and retirement village capacity to the Kapiti Coast with NDY providing acoustics master planning advice.

Essential to a successful outcome, acoustics assessments during the master plan stage provided important information on whether a barrier for the nearby Kapiti Expressway would provide an optimal, cost-effective solution in comparison with integrating higher specification facade systems on those dwellings closest to the expressway.

With the site covered in dense, prickly foliage during the monitoring phase, identification of appropriate locations for long term placement of unattended noise loggers was key. NDY collaborated with the Summerset architectural team, making use of their site-wide Revit model to pinpoint appropriate locations.

Using sophisticated modelling of the sloping site contours, our team was able to accurately predict noise levels across the site. NDY’s master planning advice on acoustics solutions included:

• Long term unattended monitoring of traffic noise from the Kapiti Expressway
• SoundPlan modelling of the traffic noise exposure across the entire site (with and without a barrier)
• Glazed and non-glazed facade recommendations for complying with district plan internal noise limits.

Ultimately, our assessment enabled our client to understand the facade requirements throughout the development and enabled costings for both the no barrier and barrier options. NDY applied an interpretation of the planning regulations which was practical and offered significant cost savings for Summerset. The Kapiti Coast Council accepted the interpretation and the project was granted resource consent on this basis.